BOHR International Journal of Finance and Market Research

2021, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 44–48

https://doi.org/10.54646/bijfmr.007
www.bohrpub.com

Welfare of Education in Kanyakumari District

A. Darwin Jose Raju1 , C. Seldev Christopher2 , A. Subitha2 , J. Bright Jose2 , A. S. Karthika2

and S. L. Krishna Priya3
1 Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, St. Xavier’s Catholic College of Engineering,
Nagercoil, India
2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, St. Xavier’s Catholic College of Engineering,

Nagercoil, India
3 Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, St. Xavier’s Catholic College of Engineering,

Nagercoil, India
E-mail: darwinraju@ieee.org, seldev@ieee.org; subitha_thomas@yahoo.com; i_brightjose@yahoo.com;
karthika_as@ieee.org; krishnapriyaslkp@gmail.com

Abstract. The intention of this paper is to provide a clear idea about the current education scenario practiced in
Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, India, its associated drawbacks and to propose innovative teaching methods.
For this purpose, various schools in the district were visited and surveys had been conducted to bring out the
expectations and interests of students towards our education system. Based on the feedback given by the students
and teachers, an analysis was performed and the shortcomings in the current education system were spotted out.
The suggestions and expectations on the existing education scheme are being discussed in this paper.
Keywords: Education, Education System, Learning.

Rabindranath Tagore or a Ravi Varma or a Lincoln out of

1 Introduction
The growth and development of a country in all sectors
depends on the quality of education provided to its citi-
zens. The primary purpose of education is to mould good
individuals who are capable of serving society. The educa-
tion also aims at yielding knowledge among students in all
aspects, making them dream bigger and developing their
personal skills. Whatever the objective of education may
be, its scenario in our state is completely based on marks
obtained in the examinations. The quality of education is
measured in terms of grades and the toppers are consid-
ered to be brilliant. This has poisoned the very roots of
education and its intentions. The talents of the students are
nipped in bud and all of them are made to concentrate in
scoring higher grades and in choosing professional courses
for higher studies. This teaching methodology has been
generating lakhs of Engineers every year, yet not even one
it. Seeds of independent thinking lie within every individ-
ual and it’s the duty of the parents and teachers to create
an atmosphere for it to sprout. The real target of education
can be achieved only if the individual’s talents are brought
out in addition to imparting knowledge to them.
2 Education Background of
Kanyakumari District
Education in Kanyakumari district is greatly influenced
by the Christian Missionaries which were the pioneers of
English education in the erstwhile Travancore State and
more particularly in the then South Travancore, the area
which presently forms the district of Kanyakumari. The
Portuguese and the Dutch, who came to the former Tra-
vancore State before the British, were the Roman Catholics

44
Welfare of Education in Kanyakumari District
and they paid little attention towards the cause of educa-
tion. But later, the Protestant Missionaries who arrived in
this place introduced English education in the district. Rev.
William Tobias Ringle Taube, a native of Prussia who came
to India in 1806, was the founder of the English School in
the formerly Travancore State. During the short period of
ten years from 1806 to 1816, he laid the foundation for the
popular education in the area.
Before the Government of the then Travancore Native
State took over the direction and control of the educa-
tion system, private teachers called Asans used to conduct
schools in villages and spread such instruction required
for daily life of the ordinary man. The then Government
took no direct part in the field of education. The teachers
were not paid the due remuneration, and the villagers con-
tributed themselves voluntarily for the teachers’ fees.
When Kanyakumari district was formed and added to
the then Chennai (Madras) in 1956, the education depart-
ment of the state was headed by the director of public
instructions. The state was divided into the two divi-
sions, each division being under the control of a divisional
inspector. On the formation of Kanyakumari district, it
was included under the control of the divisional inspector,
Madurai.
3 Methodology
In order to make out the teaching methods prevailing in
our education system, to analyse its pros and cons and to
enhance the interests of high school students towards tech-
nology, visits were organized to the following schools and
surveys were conducted:
1. Government Higher Secondary School, Kodu-
paikuzhy on 22nd June 2016:
A technical session on “Basics of Electromagnetism”
was conducted and the ideas on power distribu-
tion and electric shock were disseminated to the
students. The terms like electricity, magnetism, their
types and their practical applications such as motors,
generators and transformers were also explained.
A demonstration was given on the project developed
using Arduino and an ultrasonic sensor to sense the
distance of an object. This helped the students to
become somewhat familiar with the recent technolo-
gies. Models of Distance Finder, 4X4 LED Matrix and
Electronic Snap Circuit were also presented to the
students.
2. Government Higher Secondary School, Puthoor on
15th September 2016:
A technical session on “The Basics of Semiconduc-
tors” was conducted with the view of helping the
students to get an idea about the basic concepts of
45
semiconductor devices such as diode, LED, MOD-
FET, solar panels, their operations and applications.
3. Three teams each with four members disseminated
their knowledge on the following topics to the stu-
dents:
• Semiconductors and Applications
• Harnessing Solar/Wind Energy – Application
and Principles
• Nanotechnology – Principle and Applications
The charts, models and powerpoint presentations
were used to present these topics in detail. The stu-
dents of the following schools were made familiar
with those topics:
• Government Higher Secondary School, Thuck-
alay, on 27th July 2016
• Government Girls Higher Secondary School,
Marthandam, on 29th July 2016
• SLB Girls Higher Secondary School, on 1st
August 2016
• Kavimani Desigavinayagam Pillai Girls Higher
Secondary School, on 1st August 2016
In addition to these, feedback was collected from the
students and teachers regarding their views about the
present education system.
4 Education in Kanyakumari –
Current Scenario
Even though the district ranks first in the case of liter-
acy rate in TamilNadu, the rate of unemployed people
is considerably high. The major reason behind this situa-
tion is that most of the students lack the basic knowledge
and stick to the curriculum and exams. The current cur-
riculum for school education is average but the reach to
students is poor. This curriculum has many drawbacks
and it mainly focuses only on examinations and marks.
The private schools of Kanyakumari outperform the gov-
ernment schools in the same area, as the teachers get
credits only if they produce escalating merits for every
successive year whereas in the government schools their
job security has nothing to do with the results of the
school. Every year a large number of unemployed grad-
uates, who lack basic communication and problem-solving
skills that are needed for even the most elementary jobs,
are produced.
5 Teaching Methodology
Teaching methodology plays a vital role in education.
It is the most powerful tool in education. The teaching
46 A. Darwin Jose Raju et al.

should create an interest and fascination towards the sub-

ject. The teaching methodology in the existing system is 7 Result
result oriented and not knowledge based. The students are
taught on the basis of examination and eventually some
of the topics are skipped by the teachers. In some schools,
even the portion for IX and XI classes are skipped. Dur-
ing the IX and XI standards, the syllabus for X and XII
standard are covered respectively. After finishing the cur-
riculum, the students are being pressurized in the name
of cyclic tests and weekly exams. This method is fol-
lowed to make the students memorize each line of text
book, so that they will be able to secure high marks and
state level ranks. As a result of this teaching method-
ology the students are not clear with the concepts and
subjects.

6 Effects
The current education system in Kanyakumari has the fol-
lowing effects:
• The syllabus taught to students is exam oriented.
• This existing system is based on competition and
here the competition arises from different schools for
achieving greater results. Thus, every school manage-
ment, especially the private institutions pressurizes
the students to score high marks. As a result, the sui-
cide rate of students increases every year.
• Eventually the students also get used to it and they
tend to study only for scoring in the examinations.
• As they are taught on the basis of exams, the students
lack interests in understanding the concepts, techni-
cal knowledge and practical skills.
• Most of the government schools are lacking text-
books and have poor infrastructure.
• This system fails to spot out and encourage the skills
hidden within each student.
• Government’s investment towards education is only
3% of its GDP which is low compared to other sec-
tors and this makes private institutions to increase
the cost of education.
• Ethics aren’t being taught in schools which results in
the lack of ethics among many educated persons.
• There is no incentive for teachers to encourage critical
thinking in children.
• Although teachers in government schools have var-
ious benefits compared to private institutions, they
lack in clarity of explanation and proper guidance.
• Since the rate of pressure is more for private teachers
than government teachers in case of job security, they
implement the pressure over students for marks and
grades by conducting regular examinations instead
of teaching.
Figure 1.
8 Observation and Survey
In order to analyse the existing education system of
Kanyakumari district, various schools of our district have
been visited and individual feedback from each student
and teachers were obtained. Their comments on the pre-
vailing education system and their expectations on it were
attained.
From the survey, it is noted that about 74% of the
students in the district, study just to score high marks
and secure ranks during their examination. The students
belonging to this category focus on achieving high scores
which paves way for choosing higher studies that leads to
better career paths.
It is observed that about 25% of students study for par-
ents and management sake. The students belonging to this
category are pressurized and forced to study because of
the school management especially private organizations
whose objective is producing greater results and parents
who influence their expectations over their children.
It is observed that only around 1% of students study
to score marks as well as to develop their skills. The stu-
dents of this category can be expected to excel in both their
academics and extracurricular activities. Apart from these
it has been found that the discovery-learning approaches
are preferred by the students to the traditional “tell-and-
practice” approaches [1]. The traditional approach in lec-
tures promotes passive learning [8] and it often creates a
mismatch between the teachers’ way of teaching and the
students’ way of learning.
Welfare of Education in Kanyakumari District
9 Students Expectations Towards
Education System
• They expect the teachers to teach the subjects using
power point presentations, charts, models or audio
and visual aids.
• About 90% of the students have complained that
some of the topics coming under examination point
of view were not taught properly but instead they
were made to learn the content without making them
understand the crux and necessity of the topic in real
life scenario.
• They are interested in implementing the theoretical
knowledge that they gain from the subjects in prac-
tical and real-life applications. But there is lack of
support from the teachers for this kind of activities
apart from the textbooks and curriculum.
10 Experience Gained
The interaction with school students gave a different expe-
rience for our team. All our members felt completed after
disseminating their knowledge to the students. Each and
every student was made to understand even the minute
concepts behind each technology by utilizing the aids [4]
like models, charts, diagrams, power point presentations,
videos and real-life examples. The utilization of visual aids
grabbed the attention of the students and created an inter-
est within them to listen to the technical sessions. Their
curiosity in knowing the recent technologies was revealed
when they were encouraged to work with the models and
projects. We succeeded in making the technology reach the
children and in spotting out the flaws in the current educa-
tion system.
11 Discussions
It is necessary that Indian government has to invest at least
4% of GDP in the education sector. It should concentrate
heavily on improving the infrastructure of the education
sector, appointing teachers and in training them. Moreover,
the entire attitude towards education has to be changed
and the method of teaching has to be revised. It should aim
at making the students learn the subjects and concepts, but
not making them study all those stuffs.
The teachers must disseminate and encourage logical
thinking and creativity among students. The exam patterns
have to be changed in such a way that it should test the
knowledge of students on the subject and not their mem-
ory. The students should be made largely self-reliant to
understand the problem and to apply their knowledge and
problem-solving methods [7] to crack it.
47
Students have to be exposed to economic and social
problems around the world through conducting various
awareness programs. They should be kept updated about
the world news and general knowledge. Their personali-
ties and unique skills should be found out and it needs to
be developed.
Steps should be taken in order to introduce technical
mode of teaching in schools. Educational Robots can be
used for teaching purpose [5] and it can replace teachers.
It can help the students in building their own depictions
and notions of science and technology [6]. In order to
support the life-long learning and autonomous learning
activities of students, remote laboratories [3] can be intro-
duced.
As the school years are key times in the improvement
of orientation towards careers [2], the students should be
given a clear vision about the opportunities available to
them in this world. This can help them in choosing a career
based on their interest and opportunity.
Another important factor is malnutrition among stu-
dents which could affect their ability to learn. Thus, proper
measures have to be taken to avoid the nutrition deficiency.
In total, the education system is supposed to mould each
student into a responsible citizen.
12 Conclusion
Education is one of the most efficient interventions for
improving our human living standards by means of
improving the literacy rate in marginalized societies. It is
the only means of eradicating poverty, improving people’s
health and increasing economic growth. We need an educa-
tion system that may eradicate illiteracy and may provide
the common man an access not only to basic education
but also to higher and technical education. Thus, the entire
attitude towards education has to be changed. With an
effective learning system, India can successfully utilize its
vast human resources.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our gratitude towards IEEE
University Partnership Program for the financial sup-
port. We would also like to thank our student volunteers
A. Arun Kumar, Bala Remya, M. Ivana Bhagya, N. Asiya
Beevi, C. Bertino, R. Shiney, J. Beautlin Jenisha, J. G.
Benny Jackson, L. Jenkins Roch, R. Ankayarkanni, A.S.
Karthika., M. Bala Murugan, D. Jeffry Jacob, Kavyashree
Prakashan, Z. Mohamed Siad, B. Anuja and M.Asha who
have been a constant support during the school visits
and survey, by organizing various sessions for the school
students.
48
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